Current Events > Any tips for playing through Pikmin?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I just finished Overlord again and after finishing it I decided to give Pikmin another try since it was the game that obviously inspired Overlord. I had only played it when I first got my gamecube and rented it. I had no memory card and the time limit thing discouraged me when I had a few days where I didn't accomplish anything, so I just returned it and never played it again.

Going from Overlord to this is a little bit of an adjustment since you can't just sweep your Pikmin all across the map, their sweeping radius is so small that Olimar has to basically be right next to the target already, otherwise you have to keep launching them one by one for faraway targets. Is that correct or am I doing something wrong?

Also it's kind of annoying how long it takes for Pikmin to knock down barriers and stuff. I know the yellow ones can bomb walls and enemies to speed it up but for stuff like opening the bridge in the 2nd level it took FOREVER and I had like all of my Pikmin working on the job and it still took half of the day just to open it and I just feel like I'm wasting a lot of time. Is there a better way to accomplish those kinda tasks?

Pro tip: Keep a box of tissues close by when you're fighting tough enemies. After listening to all of your pikmin's death throes over and over again you will not be able to stop crying.

For bridge building, I tend to leave a decent size group to do that while I go for another ship part. Also note that you can bring ship parts partway and finish it another day.

Besides that, usually its easier to rush enemies from behind before they take anything out. Do note that wollywogs can kill as many Pikmin as they physically can, unlike other enemies that can only eat a few Pikmin per bite.

throw the pikmin

Bombs work on wooden gates too, not just stone. For bridges or gates you can't reach with bombs, you can leave 20 pokemon on them or whatever and just let them work while doing other stuff.

The game tells you this, but people miss it: if you throw a yellow that is holding a bomb and whistle for it, it drops it in place (with a live fuse) when it comes back to you. If you dismiss your pikmin with the "dismiss and sort all" command, you can whistle for your bomb-carriers and they will keep their bombs.

Combat is snowbally: having a massive army of 60+ lets you kill bulborbs before they wake up all the way if you are decisive, for example. Throwing enough Pikmin on Wolliwogs quickly enough lets you prevent them from jumping. The baby enemies and grubs die in one hit if you toss a Pikmin directly on them, which is easier before they notice you, or you can swarm them if you have a decent group size. Just be careful of the more unique boss-like enemies that can one-shot in an AoE.

There is a BIG snowballing effect if you are able to play days more efficiently, because it means enemies respawn fewer times as days advance, which affords you more time to gather parts each day.